It seems likely that they were drinking sewage-contaminated water. Ingestion of contaminated water is the source of a staggering variety of illnesses for both humans and animals. Souce: I work in environmental monitoring.
In very rural areas, especially on reservations, I believe water and sewage treatment is an ongoing issue.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-enviro-report-1.4...
That's from 2009 but it seems unlikely to have been completely resolved since then given the scale of the issue (200 billion litres a year).
As for the "stepped on many nerves", I think your comment was interpreted as meaning "we should stay at home and wear masks forever", whereas the general patience for such measures is wearing thin. My guess is that part of the reason for a rising rate of violent crime in the U.S. in the last twelve months is simply more people with rising frustration, such that they are more willing to resort to violence.
By the way it appears that white-tailed deer in the US have now also been found to have antibodies likely indicating covid-19 exposure: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.454326v1....
Interactions with humans transmitting the Delta variant, in very extreme (NB shortest) cases need upwards of 50-60 seconds, where common transmissions need longer. Which suggests that people need quite long 1-1 interactions with multiple animals to spread it, which to me appears very unlikely.
This belief is based on research that supported that covid was unlikely to happen until the first super-spreader event in the wet market.
Furthermore, given the symptoms observed in humans, if we are to assume similar symptoms in the wild animals, then odds are these animals become easy(er) pray, which reduces odds of mass transmission. Finally, even if wild animals spend a lot of time in 'close proximity', they are constantly out-doors and in much larger distance than humans sitting in public transport, which suggests there are super-spreader "events" or viral-sources that dump virus particles on wild animals and allow the virus to enter the population.
So I do agree that there may be something we are overlooking, perhaps related to waste-water, but this is why I am asking. Even if it doesn't matter anymore wrt covid, it matters for the future.
As for the people that misinterpret the noun 'option' accompanied with the adjective 'permanent', they need to understand that the ability for those willing to WFH, will help deal with covid, reduce road congestion, gas emissions, time wasted in commute, and ease measurements. I am not advocating for permanent lockdowns or anything alike. But it is common knowledge that flu infections have reduced significantly, and masks can help deal with smog in cities, as is done in cities in Asia.
I am not a biologist, nor a doctor, but I think this assumption is a little bit too much. We know that coronavirus does not create the same symptoms as the ones observed in humans for some animals (see bats for example) as their immune system is not like ours. So the conclusion: "symptoms in wild animals are similar with humans" is probably false.
- Coughing - Sneezing - A runny nose - Weepy eyes - Vomiting or diarrhoea - Mild breathing difficulties - High temperature - Reduced appetite
https://www.pdsa.org.uk/taking-care-of-your-pet/pet-health-h...
Furthermore, if the corona virus does not exhibit the same symptoms which are a consequence of an infection of the respiratory tract, then transmission will be very different and probably significantly lower which does not fit the data, i.e. mass infections in the wild.
I've been within a few feet of wild deer plenty of times in my life. Humans have a lot more interaction with wild animals than you would think once you move outside of urban areas.
Wild animals are not commonly tested for covid-19, but those that have been have seen widespread infection. ...which means most populations of mammals and possibly birds are infected as well.
...so the deer could have caught it from any number of other animals in the wild - or more likely, from their droppings.
https://gothamist.com/news/germs-spill-from-animals-to-human...
Think about it like online ads. Even though you've never clicked on one and don't know anyone who clicks on them, the market is worth hundreds of billions. There are so many novel pathogens floating around the world that if humans are exposed to 0.01% of them we'll still see regular epidemics and occasional pandemics.
The good news is that even if COVID is running rampant through the deer populations they shouldn't pass them on to humans very often, so if humans are good at identifying and stopping isolated outbreaks then we can live with the risk.
Which is exactly how we got here.
Perhaps we can learn to be more mindful of our interactions with other animals, wear masks in public spaces or public transport, and hopefully WFH becomes a permanent option.
It seems that I stepped on many nerves, please, feel free to disagree or argue.